Berklee Silent Film Orchestra Faculty/Staff

Sheldon Mirowitz, Professor

Sheldon Mirowitz, professor of film scoring at Berklee, leads the Berklee Silent Film Orchestra (BSFO). A composer who has scored more than 100 film and television projects, he has been nominated three times for an Emmy Award for Best Music, most recently for the score to A&E's The Nazi Officer's Wife. His credits include the score to the Oscar-nominated feature documentary Troublesome Creek, which received both the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival; popular feature films such as Outside Providence and Missing in America; and numerous credits for PBS programs such as NOVA, Independent Lens, American Experience, FRONTLINE, and more. Mirowitz also recently scored the critically acclaimed Ken Burns documentary Defying the Nazis: The Sharps’ War.

Mirowitz has written theme music for networks ranging from MTV to the History Channel, and has scored hundreds of commercials, including award-winning work for clients such as Kodak, Converse, UPS, Reebok, and AT&T. He has also worked as an arranger, producer, and multi-instrumentalist on numerous recording projects with a number of top New England–based artists, including Livingston Taylor, Patty Larkin, and Aine Minogue, among others. Mirowitz, a graduate of Dartmouth College, has served as a mentor to hundreds of students who have gone on to work in the film and television industry.

Watch Mirowitz deliver a TEDx talk:

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Rob Hayes, Managing Director

Rob Hayes is managing director of the BSFO and director of special projects/Berklee Presents. Hayes came to Berklee in 1992 from the high-tech public relations firm Miller Communications to lead Berklee’s Office of Media Relations, where he drove major coverage of the college by NPR, CNN, Rolling Stone, the Associated Press, and the New York Times, among others.

In 1996, he began Berklee Presents, which includes Berklee student performances and tours, and Berklee’s broadcasting initiatives, producing dozens of major-venue performances and broadcasts nationally each year. Hayes initiated and manages Berklee's relationship with NPR, executive producing 10 Boston editions of the network's worldwide New Year's Eve radio broadcast, Toast of the Nation, and he has overseen several Berklee-related episodes of NPR's Jazz Night in America. In 2010, he initiated and continues to oversee WBGO's The Checkout—Live at Berklee, a series of live jazz broadcasts featuring Berklee alumni. 

With Mirowitz, Hayes began touring with the BSFO in 2010, and since 2015, he has led the group to an annual performance at the world-renowned San Francisco Silent Film Festival. The BSFO now records and distributes its scores through relationships with Kino Lorber and other major film studios and distributors.